The Shadow In The Dark
by Marisol Hashimoto
Summary: A series of One-Shots centred around Billy Kaplan.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N**  
I've only really read the 2013 Young Avengers so my characterisation may be fairly OOC but after becoming fairly obsessed with Billy Kaplan I thought I'd blow off some writing steam.

Just one-shots but maybe with some sort of vague plot at some point? Who knows?

(Jared is my OC)

* * *

 **Jared**

I've been in this dimension for all of twenty minutes and already I'm being chased through a sketchy-looking neighbourhood in the dead of night by…

Well that's the problem.

When you come from somewhere as far away as I have, you don't tend to know so much about the people trying to kill you. Unfortunately it's an area that I've become intimately familiar with.

I slip as I skid round a corner, painfully ripping the skin across my knee as I struggle to regain momentum and keep pushing forward. My quick tumble has given those behind me a little too much of an opportunity to catch up for my liking.

Normally, when I'm thrown into alternate Londons, I'm able to orient myself with much more ease - the landmarks rarely change significantly - but this place is completely alien. The streets are too wide ; gridlike, and the air tastes different. I don't  
know where to run or hide and I'm tired.

I'm tired of being unhitched from reality every few weeks and thrust somewhere totally new.

I'm tired of running; from militant dictatorships; terrorist organisations; assorted street criminals; well-meaning social-workers.

I'm tired of living like a ghost.

Since… since it happened, I've left no impression where I go - it's like any chance to make a mark on this world was snatched from me, just as I was losing everything else.

As these thoughts fill my mind like leaden balloons, a surge of weariness rises up through my limbs and I let my foot hang a fraction too low as I leap a kerb and go sprawling across the concrete, headfirst. Pain starbursts across my brain as my nose  
connects with the ground - making a particularly unpleasant crunching noise as it does so and some broken glass from bugger-knows-where slices into my cheek. I come to a rest feeling like half of my face has been skinned with an arm hanging at an  
odd angle and refusing to move when I tell it to.

 _So this is it,_ I think to myself, _This is where it all ends._

 __

I'm flipped unceremoniously onto my back so my attackerscan gaze upon my face. Since my nose has swollen to the size of a small grapefruit, I can't do him the courtesy of gazing back.

I can make out the glowing muzzle of some sort of gun, though.

Especially when it's an inch from my face.

My fingers twitch in one last-ditch attempt to protect myself but nothing happens. I close my eyes and wait for the inevitable. Only one thought crosses my mind, and I'm happy that my last memory will be of him.

Searing blue light fills my vision and I brace myself…

…and then I remember that the gun was glowing red - not blue.

Tentatively, I crack open my eyes just in time to see a hulking shadow of a man blasted backwards, streamers of blue-white energy trailing from his limp body like ribbons.

Something big and green slams into another of my would-be assassins and a red-blue blur throws one an unlikely distance. I'm thanking whatever Creator of this Universe when I see another burst of blue energy and trace the lines back to its source. My  
eyes sharpen as if desperate to confirm what I'm seeing.

My breath catches in my throat.

 _It can't be._

 __

The man, boy really, is wearing an outfit that looks like it was spun from stars - galaxies woven into each thread. His tattered, red cape flies out behind him and his hood has fallen back st some point in the conflict.

His skin is light, more tanned than mine, but startling against the darkness of the night and his hair. Sweeping over in a breathtaking wave, his hair drags my gaze across his face - his sculpted nose, high cheekbones and soft lips - to his eyes. They  
glow with an eerie light of electric blue than sparks in the shadows.

But I know that they are normally brown.

A warm, beautiful, loving brown.

Because I know him.

And he should be dead.

The scream rips through my throat, before I know what I'm doing.

 _"Billy! I love-"_

 __

I see surprise flash across his features at his real name before something hard and painful connects with the back of my head and cuts me off mid-sentence, sending me spinning into the darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Billy**

It had been a week since the Young Avengers had come across the group of what they assumed to be muggers beating the boy in the car park. Until America had seen the weapons that they were using they'd had no reason to believe this would be any more difficult than stopping any other mugging. Then there was the fact that there had in reality been over twenty of them spaced out, armed with snipers and long-range weapons, in a loose ring around the scene of the attack - just in case the boy had somehow managed to, unarmed, fend off his assailants.

In hindsight, America had said, it didn't look anything like a mugging.

Billy still wasn't sure what he thought; everything in his head was a whirling, muddled storm cloud. Everything had being going as per usual - as much as a teenage superhero can _say_  
style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 14pt;"as per usual - in the fight. He'd sent a burst of lightning at the man holding his gun to the boy's temple and then span in the air to shield Hulking's back as he crashed through their ranks like a bowling ball. Just as he'd sent a second surge  
of energy out, causing the enemies to scatter, he'd seen the boy's eyes flash up to him and lock on his own.

Billy was still haunted by what he saw there.

For a split second; disbelief, followed by a wave of pure, unadulterated joy mixed with a terrible, wistful longing and pain. And then his lips opened and he yelled before someone cracked the back of a rifle into his head and started beating him with it - Billy figured that it'd stopped working or something - before America kicked him in the stomach and practically put her foot through his sternum.

Only Billy and America were close enough to hear what the boy had screamed, Teddy said he'd heard _something_  
style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 14pt;"over the clamour of the battle but couldn't make out the words.

He knew me, Billy thought to himself with certainty, I've never seen him before in my life but somehow he knew exactly who I was and I meant something to him. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair as he looked down at the boy on the bed; staring as hard as he could. Still nothing. Not even a hint if deja vu to suggest that he'd ever seen this person before in his life.

Since he'd been knocked unconscious, America, rather than asking permission, had railroaded the Avengers into getting him treated in the the Mansion. Everyone had been to visit him once or twice in the following week - even Tommy had curiously peered in - but no one stayed long. They just wanted to see if he'd woken yet.

Unlike Billy.

Whoever this kid was, he was somehow linked to Billy and that made him uneasy, but also vaguely protective. He watched, concerned, as the boy's eyebrows scrunched and his expression filled with pain. This wasn't the first time it had happened - Billy has seen the terror and fear on his face every few hours or so like something was chasing him through his dreams.

God knows Billy knew exactly how that felt.

The monitors hooked up to the kid began to whistle a high-pitched note, squealing louder and louder like a kettle on the boil.

It was the only warning Billy got before they exploded in showers of sparks that peppered the front of his shirt, filling the small room with the smell of burning.

'America!' Billy yelled, knowing she was the only one still in the house with him, 'I need some help in here!'

Without waiting for a response, he turned back to the boy, wanting to help; wanting to do _something_  
style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 14pt;", to see him writhing in agony, winding up the sheets into knots with his desperate thrashing about.

 _At least I know how to deal with this,_ Billy thought, somewhat relieved as he bounded forward and grabbed the boy's flailing arms - wrestling them to his sides. His slight stature belied the wiry strength in his arms as he bucked and twisted in Billy's grip. The sparks that still leapt from the instruments sent out little cracks and snaps of sound that became the only sound in the room as the screaming of the monitors petered out.

Thunderous footsteps echoed through the corridor behind him as America burst into the room, her brown eyes widening as they took in the sight of the boy on the bed trying to throw Billy off. She moved forward, as if to use her superior strength to aid him, but in that moment he opened eyes and  
style="font-family: '.SFUIText-Italic'; font-style: italic; font-size: 14pt;"howled.

It was as much a physical force as a noise; America staggered backwards towards the door whilst Billy, closer to the source of the sound, was practically blasted across the room. Blue-green light darted from the boy's body all over, like sparks while his pupils dilated until the entirety of each of his eyes became a solid disc, the same colour as the light gathering in a tempest around him. His scream was like  
style="font-family: '.SFUIText-Italic'; font-style: italic; font-size: 14pt;"agony;distilled into a single note, blasting out from him in a siren of sound that whipped power spilling into the air into even more of a frenzy.

And then, as suddenly as it had started, the storm quieted.

The only sound in the room was ragged breathing as the boy sitting in the bed cracked open his eyes.

Immediately, they locked onto Billy.

And that was all the warning he got before the boy launched himself across the room, and mashed his lips into Billy's. For a split-second the storm of questions that had been building behind Billy's eyelids quieted.

The kiss lasted a long thirty seconds or so - the boy twined his fingers in Billy's hair, traced his jaw with skimming fingers as light as air - before he noticed he wasn't getting much of a response.

Meanwhile Billy's head was in chaos. He resisted his first impulse to blast the boy across the room with lightning by sheer force of will - and even then it was a close thing. Though some small part of him registered that the boy was a good kisser and that this wasn't altogether too unpleasant an experience, the majority of him was shrieking Teddy's name. An even smaller voice buried in the deepest recesses of Billy's psyche calmly noted that it remembered that Billy Kaplan had kissed this boy before - hundreds of times in fact - the only problem was that it was not with the  
style="font-family: '.SFUIText-Italic'; font-style: italic; font-size: 14pt;"right Billy Kaplan. With this confusion still raging on, it took Billy those thirty seconds to gently pry the boy off of him.

When they broke apart the boy looked up at Billy with confusion and hurt sparking in those green eyes. His mouth opened but before he could say anything, a loud voice - tight with carefully controlled fury - cut through the heavy silence.

'What the fuck are you doing _kissing my boyfriend!'_

 _Oh shit,_ Billy thought to himself _, Teddy._

There was a moment where only America's quiet sniggering could be heard before Teddy, changing form in mid-air, launched himself at the boy with a guttural cry of anger.


End file.
